


Don't Leave Me Heartless

by psychicdreams



Series: Embodiment Series [3]
Category: No Fandom, xxxHoLic
Genre: Angst, Drama, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-15
Updated: 2014-05-15
Packaged: 2018-01-24 22:01:45
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,426
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1618565
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/psychicdreams/pseuds/psychicdreams
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"I need to believe in something that won't leave me heartless." -- From Silhouette, by Depswa.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Don't Leave Me Heartless

**Author's Note:**

> This and its sequel, Devil's Orchestra, are about my original characters from Un Gemito Dellestinto. These are very dark themes and language in here, so that's your warning.
> 
> Dedicated to twinnie_keens and Leilia, for drawing fanart for me. Twinnie_keens was a birthday present :D and she said I could share it with you, so [HERE IT IS](http://i63.photobucket.com/albums/h124/psychicdreams/bytwinnie_keens.jpg) Leilia did a portrait shot of Orphée in demonic form, but hasn't finished coloring it yet and she doesn't have a lot of computer time, so I don't have it yet. After that, she said she'd do Torin :D And Twinnie_keens said she was trying to work on Lucifer and Jesus! Waiiiiii, I'm so blessed!

It was surreal.

He could only stand there numbly in silence, sound sucked up into a vortex so complete you couldn’t even feel it. Red was the only color he could see, blossoming in front of his eyes like that of a full-grown rose and mocking him as drops fell in as perfect a symmetrical shape as petals. It stained the ground, seeming to suck in all the colors and make itself more vibrant than before, until it was too beautiful and horrifying to look at anymore.

This wasn’t supposed to be happening. Just _how_ could this have happened? How could _he_ , of all people, get hurt like this? With such a childish, inelegant, clumsy weapon like that?

Barely, could he hear the cacophony of noise around him from those on the crowded street, swarming like insects to the fallen warrior, trying to stop the bleeding, the abundance of blood. Police ran, catching the figure fleeing from the scene, ignoring his cries of how _he_ had taken away the most precious thing to him in the whole world.

Others that didn’t bother to help flocked nearby, making a circle around those that were doing everything in their power to stamp out the blood, and he half expected them to bring out popcorn, as if this were some sort of show and someone wasn’t dying on the ground.

He, this…powerful being, had stood against both Heaven and Hell in his life, and worse than that beyond. Dealt with pain so acutely that it was a wonder he hadn’t broken down from all the wounds that everyone had unknowingly inflicted on him. If he was going to go, this person, he…it was rightfully expected for it to be at the hands of an army of archangels and demons, not against a juvenile, ugly weapon like that.

Through it all, through the ambulance, through the panic, through the slow dissolving of the spectators, he stood there. And so it was that Watanuki found him thirty minutes later, still standing in that spot and trying to make his mind comprehend what he had seen just happen.

The tugging on his arm was insistent, perhaps more than necessary, and he finally spoke. His voice felt raw, as if he hadn’t used it for years upon years upon years, and the tone was completely disbelieving.

“Torin was shot.”

-0-

And yet Orphée’s own words could not make the reality sink into his mind. They were both over ten thousand years old, had fought in the greatest war to have ever occurred, held off both Heaven and Hell for as long as necessary to cast that annoying spirit back to where it had come from. They’d flaunted their origins and very beings, falling in love in something that many would have sworn would be impossible and would warp the very fabric of the universe, bring it to its knees, create disaster.

So how could Torin, powerful but gentle Torin, get shot by a gun that was barely bigger than his hand and looked as if it would break if he simply stared at it hard enough?

Watanuki tugged him back to Yuuko’s shop, having stopped bothering to try to get his attention, but he hadn’t noticed. Through the gate, in the shop, those were where his feet were taking him. The two girls ran here and fro, doing whatever they were required to do, the noise in the shop was almost as loud as it had been on the street and yet at the same time, he couldn’t hear anything past the roaring in his ears.

He only gave a faintly uncomprehending stare at his new trainer as she put things in a bag and stared at him long and hard. Her fingers snapped quickly several times in front of his eyes, the way one did to get a dazed person’s attention, but her only response, the only one he could give her, was a slow blink.

How surreal it all was.

“Well?! Are you just going to stand there like a moron all day, or are you going to the hospital with us? I thought for sure you’d be in the ambulance with them.”

When he didn’t respond, a voice to his left, Watanuki he recognized, explained that he’d been like that when he’d been found. As if he had been lost!

“Well, turn him around and we’ll take him to the hospital.”

“What’s the bag for?” Orphée finally asked as they both manhandled him out the door Watanuki had so laboriously pulled him into.

“Your stay at the hospital. You can’t possibly tell me that you’ll leave his bedside after all that’s happened!”

“Did you recognize who it was, Orphée-san? Was it a customer of Yuuko-san’s?”

“You mean was I the target?” That he could possibly understand, as Yuuko had been forcing him to take some of her less important clients the last two months. “I don’t know.” Torin worked at a crisis intervention center. It could be as…as… _mundane_ as someone finding out who he was and trying to kill him for merely helping hide a girl from an abusive husband or boyfriend.

Surreal was beginning to not quite cover his feelings.

Orphée lost track of time until they’d reached the hospital. Perhaps they thought it would be polite to give him a few minutes alone with Torin before they entered, but Yuuko and Watanuki quietly talked with the nearby doctor. For a second, he stared at the open doorway and his feet seemed to take over. They walked around people, stirred a path through the obstacles in his way, and toward that empty portal to the room.

Yuuko and Watanuki’s absence was a very bad thing.

Seeing Torin’s condition, hooked up to wires, covered with bandages, obviously being prepped for surgery now that he was a bit more stable, brought the reality crashing down on him. He _understood_ what had happened to Torin and his mind brought up the scene he’d watched in minute detail but had been unable to comprehend at the time. He still couldn’t tell who the initial target was, but what did that matter?

This hospital shouldn’t have Torin in it. Torin didn’t _belong_ in a place like this, where death lingered in the very air and it was a demon’s buffet for souls to feed on. Not Torin, who had done nothing but try to help. Definitely not his lover, who had refused to leave his side even when it was clear Heaven had been against them three months ago. White suited Torin, but not the stained white of bandages, nor the beeping of machines attached to a pure being such as him. The feeling of _wrongness_ when he looked upon the archangel lying in that bed was as potent as the intimate knowledge he held of what he was.

Pure and unfettered rage swept through his bloodstream, and he was already halfway running from the room when Watanuki tried to stop him. His red eyes, as vibrant as Torin’s blood had been, were full of fire and such fury that it caused the kid to step back a little.

“Where are you going, Orphée-san?”

He ignored the vaguely frightened sound in Watanuki’s voice, didn’t care if he looked homicidal. “The person who did this has a date with Lucifer and I’m just going to escort the asshole right to his throne myself. So he doesn’t get _lonely_ during the trip.”

“Orphée,” Yuuko’s voice warned him, eyes flashing, and her gaze heavy on him, as if trying to tell him to calm down and not do anything rash. “Leave it. The police have him, let them deal with it. Besides, if you went, I’d guess that it would be a very long time before his soul got to Lucifer.”

His smile back was downright feral and his sharpened senses didn’t miss the unconscious shiver that his new ‘boss’ tried to hide. “Oh, see, that’s where you’re wrong. If you think he’ll live in his body for a long time before he meets Luce, then you’d be mistaken. You see, it’s too easy to break a mortal body. The soul, however, is immortal. The soul has an unreachable threshold for pain.” That terrifying smirk on his lips widened. “ _Trust me_ on that. I know from _experience_.”

Yuuko’s hands kept Watanuki from running after him and for that he was grateful. There would be nothing left to stop him, nothing left to prevent him from reaching that mortal police station. Nothing stopping him from blazing a swath of fury behind his every step and taking him right to where his new playmate was. He would know new heights to fear and pain.

Who knew what might have happened, he later thought, if Lucifer hadn’t stood right in his way at the bottom of the steps leading up to the heavy doors of the police station. His eyes seemed to warn him to take care of himself and for the first time, Orphée realized his form had somehow managed to shift halfway between his demonic visage and his human disguise. His teeth had reached their feral points, nails grown to claws; skin a distinct pallor kind of color.

Only for love and respect of his friend did Orphée step aside with Lucifer and away from his unsuspecting prey. Nothing would have kept him away otherwise. Nothing, not even the Lord of Hell, could calm his rage. Someone had dared hurt Torin and right in front of him. That was a death sentence he would carry out without delay.

“I could sense what happened and I can see exactly what you want. I know how much you love him. But think about what this will do to him when he finds out.”

“He doesn’t have to know.”

“He _will_ know.”

“Who’s going to tell him?!”

“Nobody will have to.”

“Then how the fuck is he going to know, Luce?!”

“He’ll know, because he knows you, Naga. He knows you as well as _I_ know you and he knows that this is the first thing you would have done. Do you want to lose his respect?”

“Who gives a shit about respect!” he screeched back, not even giving a single notice to the gesture Lucifer gave him to keep his voice down. “He needs to die, to _suffer_ for what he did to Torin! So fucking menial, to hurt him with something so stupid! I won’t let him off, I won’t! You want me to let the mortals have their fucking _justice?!_ In the unlikely event he gets the death penalty, you know these bloody humans! It’ll be years and years before they do anything about it, if at all! He’ll die of old fucking age!”

“Naga! I didn’t say that he would be left alone. I merely…” For a second, it seemed as if something was choking Lucifer in his throat, but he swallowed and continued. “For my love of you, I will deal with him personally. I know you’d prefer to do it yourself, to satisfy yourself, but if there was no choice, no way to do it yourself, would I not be the only other you would allow to do something in this sort of personal situation to you?”

Orphée would have paced, were it not for Lucifer’s hands and steel-like grip on his shoulders. “I know you really care about me, Luce. We’ve been the best of friends, like brothers, for ages, but I can’t let this go by! I can’t just sit by and watch you do it, I have to do it myself.”

“Naga, if not for him, if not for anything else, think about what you are now. You are bound by more rules than anyone now that you’re going to take over that dimensional witch’s position. If you do this, it could damn your soul so permanently that not even God or I myself can help you. If you do this, you could get a moment of pleasure at this man’s pain, but do you want to risk that somehow, some way, Fate will tear you from Shekinah as your penance for the rest of time?”

He’d never thought of it that far, hadn’t even bothered to think around his rage. His temper was legendary, and once his blood was up, there was very little to calm him down. Only two people could and one of them was lying in a hospital. Lucifer shifted his grip and took his hands tightly in his, his expression as fierce and yet pleading as the lord of hell could make it. “Trust me, Naga. Let me do this for you, this once. Let me help you.”

Orphée was literally trembling with his need to take that man’s blood, to assuage his own feelings of rage and bitter helplessness. He had been so stunned at the action that he hadn’t been able to move at all. A sword, a knife, magic. Any of those and he would have reacted, protected Torin. And yet something so piddly, so clunky and ugly, had caused him to freeze in his tracks. It hadn’t even registered in his mind until he’d seen the state his lover was in, almost an hour later. Some demon he was!

But dare he risk the consequences? He could make up for his inaction with this man’s death and his suffering, but if Torin were somehow taken from him, then what did his momentary pleasure in the man’s torment mean? If he couldn’t be with him, then what would the point be? And as much as he might deny it, Torin’s feelings meant a lot to him. He would never admit it, but he had to at least have that respect Torin gave him, almost above everything else. Respect had been, at first, the only thing between them and if he lost everything else, he still had to have that respect, because it would tie them together in some way.

“…Fine,” he muttered at length. “Just make him suffer like no one else has suffered yet in Hell. I want him to regret it for the rest of eternity, to scream and scream and know that no relief will ever come. I want him to ripped to shreds, put back together, and torn apart again. And again. And again.”

“Your wish…shall be fulfilled.”

Had it been anybody other than Lucifer uttering those words, he would have sliced them to ribbons. Now, all he could feel was anticipation.

**End Part 1**  



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